Origami Heart
by CleotheDreamer
Summary: 'You say you won't give in to the world, but you already have – like a paper bird, you crumble.'


You are a fragile thing.

You don't like to acknowledge it, but you are.

You are small, weak – a sapling prone to breaking at the slightest of breezes.

Sometimes, it feels as though you are half the size of your peers – both in spirit and in body.

You run, you climb, you _sprint_ just to keep up.

Things sting sharper for you, though you should be used to it. Your heart should be hardened to cruelty, but it's weak.

Soft.

Like you – you're just a small thing, nothing to your name. Until there is, and you're tall, but you wonder when you grew – what made you strong in the first place. Were you just waiting to bloom, or were you always this – this strong thing, tall thing, confident thing standing solid like a cedar?

But your heart wilts as your body grows and people admire you, somehow, and it scares you – makes you lock yourself away until you're just that strong thing, tall thing. Until your weaknesses are so suffocated that even you forget that you're a weak thing.

A fragile thing.

A boy raised on prejudice and abuse.

You wonder if you left them behind – the weak, the fragile – left them with that same cruelty you suffered. Made it worse, even.

So strong, you are – so weak, you are, to pretend. An actor.

'A fraud,' you scream. Wounded animal, you, who sobbed for a dream.

Here you are, strong, muscle bulging on broken bones. Weak, fragile bones, you break yourself for this, masking your pain with the physical tears and tatters of a body worn too thin.

Strong thing you, you drag yourself forward on crooked fingers. And your hands hold mountains, streets, highways, like you're a god.

Major, minor – billboard sensation, god. Fought Endeavor's son, god.

Weak you, who waited for galaxies to grow in the space between your fingers before you stood, tall, tumbled and fell. Felt small because you were small, learned that that was what made you – what guaranteed your worth.

Small fists with scraped knuckles. Small hands trying futilely to clutch to a dream.

Dream you is tall. Broad shoulders, broad smile – _big_ you, with roses twisting 'round your heart. Tightening, suffocating, thorny thing.

You ignore it – weak you, too soft heart bleeding from too sharp words. Never bled like this – too tall, you, to bleed like this.

Hurt like this.

Like small you, who cracked at the slightest of force.

Soft you, you slam your head against brick walls for some silence. You play like a hero, but you forgot, didn't you? To save yourself.

It's hard, isn't it? To forget that you feel. To forget to live – to cry _real_ tears. Ones which loosen the thorns in your chest.

And you live, you, dead you, who's locked up like a fortress. Friendless you, who gives just enough to make people forget that they don't actually know anything about you. Popular you, with people clinging to your sleeves like you aren't a diseased thing. You wonder what they'd say if they knew of weak you, freak you, who wished and hoped and dreamed of things you shouldn't have.

Fortress you, with hands like houses and a heart like a drum. You wonder what could break your walls.

Coward you who can't acknowledge that you _weren't_ born an anxious thing, a spineless thing. You, who could save the world from itself. Coward you who lets it rip itself apart anyway.

You lost yourself, didn't you? A long time ago, it seems. You lost yourself, forgot what it meant to smile.

To save.

And you say you won't give in to the world, but you already have – like a paper bird, you crumble, bend yourself backward for impossible feats. Fold yourself into different shapes to please.

Like a puppet, you, with tangled up strings.

For a while, you had everything. Big you, broad smile you. But you, you lie, you fake, you cry.

And they see you, and they smile, and you think that maybe you've fooled them.

Coward you, not brave enough to show yourself. Problem you, not even good enough to save one life.

You wonder if you were ever strong at all. You, with a body like firewood waiting to burn.

You lie, and you fake, and you smile and hate. And you lock it all away waiting for the day that you fall – the inevitable reveal.

So, you wait, coward you, for courage like sunlight to fill your veins. You wait, fragile thing, until your heart can pump starlight and your hands glow.

You wait, and you wonder what it would take for you to take a step forward on your own for once.

Selfish you.

Selfless you.

You can't even tell a lie, and yet, your secrets could topple mountains.


End file.
